Application of a tensile test method to identify the ductile-brittle transition of caramel

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

During cutting of foods, tensile stresses in front of the blade are responsible for the separation of the material. Therefore, tensile tests can be helpful to gain knowledge on deformation properties related to pre-fracture cutting behavior as well as on phenomena in the fracture zone, which are velocity-dependent in viscoelastic materials. The aim of this work was to apply a tensile test method for model caramels to investigate their behavior and to identify conditions where the ductile-brittle transition occurs. After executing pre-trials, tensile velocity, caramel moisture, and temperature were the parameters that were varied for this purpose. In general, increasing velocity, decreasing temperature, and decreasing moisture resulted in a stiffer response and caused a shift from a ductile to a more brittle behavior, attributable to reduced viscous contributions to the material and longer relaxation times. Fracture strain was notably lower than the maximum plastic elongation in the ductile case, but we observed equalization close to the ductile-brittle transition point for our material. This study serves as basis for an in-depth research on the complex deformation and fracture phenomena during cutting of viscoelastic food systems, including numerical modeling.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number3218
JournalFoods
Volume11
Issue number20
Publication statusPublished - 14 Oct 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85140920929
Mendeley 05d6f30b-a147-3e31-8746-a15bb13cdc51
WOS 000873022600001
ORCID /0000-0002-1914-8473/work/142249473

Keywords

Keywords

  • DEFORMATION, FRACTURE PROPERTIES, GELS, MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES, MODEL, STRAIN, TEXTURE, TOUGHNESS, cutting, fracture, strain, stress, tensile test, viscoelasticity